Trip to Fantasy Land

I like to visit often... in fact, I think I actually live in Fantasy Land and just visit reality occasionally. My recent excursion consisted of paint and grandiose plans of a modern, chic and fabulous living room make over. Ha. Ha. Ha.
This was the plan:
Entry way- red orange with retro hand painted wallpaper.
Charcoal gray living room.
White couches with navy blue and orange vintage accent pillows.
In theory, FABULOUS. (in my case, theory=Fantasy Land).
Off to Home Depot to buy paint, yay!!! I settled on an orange paint called "Koi". As in, bright orange fish found in the lobby of a hotel (or in my case, hotel lobby= the front courtyard of the neighbor's house I ran away to in elementary school because I believed they had Halloween candy. In July. Yes, I asked for it. No, they didn't have any)
With the jar of tester paint in hand, I attacked our walls. Patches of orange went up everywhere, in every light imaginable. And in every light imaginable, the paint looked like a bright orange fish. With my pride still intact, I returned to Home Depot for different hues of orange blaming the brightness of the previous paint on the lighting in the store. Armed with two other choices, I come home to paint the remaining patches of wall with less offensive orange. This is the part of the story where you shake you head at the heroine and wonder, "why in the world..."
But, I was determined to fulfill my dream living room. It was only after much trial and error that I realized how unrealistic having this "ultra hip" concoction of a living room would really be.
It was then that the heroine realized a super cozy, luxurious picture of a living room in one of the many Martha Stewart publications involved in this desire/need/obsession to change our largest living space. Luckily for me, this new plan does not involve white couches (we have a dog! and a kid!), but it does involve purple... may this new jaunt to Fantasy Land be fruitful. I promise, I'll bring a back a souvenir...